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October 1998FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THAT Corporation
Certifies Rockwell's FusionTM Decoder Chip as The
First All-Digital Implementation of "dbx" Noise
Reduction Technology
Rockwell
licenses dbx noise-reduction technology from THAT
Corporation for use with its Fusion video-decoder chip in
stereo PC TV applications
 Marlborough, Mass.,
THAT Corporation announced today that it has licensed its dbx-TV noise
reduction technology to Rockwell Semiconductor Systems for use in
Rockwell's Fusion™ single-chip media processors, providing the first
all-digital stereo TV decoder for PC video and television cards. THAT's
certification of Rockwell's Bt879 Fusion chip is an important step
towards achieving convergence of the television and PC, a goal of many
leading players in the PC industry.
"We're
seeing a new dynamic in the PC market where the
attachment of video and PC television is growing at a
tremendous rate," said John Graham, director of
marketing for Rockwell's Digital Infotainment Division.
"We believe that this is driven largely by
Microsoft's Web TV for Windows initiative, a TV viewer
application which is an integral part of Windows® 98.
Now that our Fusion media processor chip has received dbx
certification from THAT corporation, the industry has
taken another incremental step toward making quality
stereo television on the PC a reality."
The U.S. stereo TV standard requires the use of dbx-TV
noise reduction technology for proper reproduction of the
stereo audio signal. Until the advent of Rockwell's
Fusion chip, PC TV card manufacturers have had to use one
or more external chips that add significant cost to their
products. With Rockwell's Fusion device, the need for
external hardware is eliminated, significantly reducing
the product cost both to retail card makers and PC OEMs.
"There
are some real advantages to an all-digital
solution," said Win Craft, vice president of
marketing and sales, THAT Corporation. "These
advantages include the need for fewer adjustments and
fewer external components than with most analog
solutions. And because today's surround-sound systems
need to be fed with a quality stereo signal, a properly
designed stereo TV decoder is more important than
ever."
Rockwell's
Fusion chip, the Bt879, is the lowest-cost, most easily
integrated broadcast media-capture solution for today's
mainstream PCs. Fusion provides the technology for
applications such as video conferencing, video capture,
video email, video and still editing, stereo PC TV, and
data services.
Other
features of the Fusion device include NTSC/PAL/SECAM
video, a 5-tap vertical filter, support for multiple
composite and S-Video inputs, a video scaler, and image
peaking. The Fusion family also supports the digital
video standard CCIR656 and has the ability to capture and
decode Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) data. This allows
it to decode WST (Teletext) or NABTS (Intel's Intercast),
and closed-captioning data.
Fusion driver
support includes both Windows®95 and Windows 98. The
Windows 95/98 VxD Software Developer's Kit (SDK) contains
a complete suite of software drivers, plus an I2C port
for connectivity to external devices such as tuners and
digital cameras. Stereo TV audio software support will be
included in the next release of the Windows 95/98 VxD SDK
in early 1999. The Windows 98 WDM SDK includes a WDM
video driver and support for NTSC and PAL standards . WDM
support for stereo TV audio will become available upon
Microsoft's completion of Direct Show streaming audio
development for NT 5.0.
Samples of
the Fusion chip Bt879 are available now.
For complete
information on dbx
noise reduction technology contact
THAT Corporation.
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